Shane Zaza and Alec Newman in The Dumb Waiter at the Hampstead Theatre Credit: Alastair Muir You can almost smell the damp rising off the stained brown walls in this 60th-anniversary production of Harold Pinter’s early absurdist thriller, rescheduled (for the familiar reasons) from March. The Dumb Waiter is one of his more accessible shorts, a mix of Beckett and Martin McDonagh in which two hitmen in the basement of an unnamed building wait for instructions for their next job, like Waiting for Godot with guns. Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman most recently – and memorably – performed it during Jamie Lloyd’s 2019 Pinter at the Pinter season in the West End. The initially unnerving thing about Alice Hamilton’s horribly atmospheric production, however, is how little Alec Newman and Shane Zaza look like hitman. Newman’s Ben reclines on the bed reading the paper, the picture of Sunday afternoon leisure. Zaza’s younger, more wholesome-looking Gus keeps tying and retying his laces, like a slightly gormless school boy.